HE HOPES CRIME SPARKS ACTION

Robert Dempsey, Florida's top cop, was in the unenviable position last week of announcing a 3.4 percent increase in serious crime in Florida in 1984, a reversal of a two-year downward trend.

The silver-badge lining for him in this sober announcement is that crime issues, shoved to the side the last couple of legislative sessions, may gain a bit more prominence.

One example of a Florida Department of Law Enforcement proposal waiting to be funded is a program to track molestors, pornographers and murderers who cruise the state and repeatedly prey on kids.

FDLE Commissioner Dempsey said the idea would be to "develop a computer system on child repeat offenders and get their modus operandi down and track them, so we don't have a Lucas and Toole wandering around abusing children." (Henry Lucas and Otis Toole went on a mass murder spree throughout the United States before being caught.)

National statistics indicate 50 percent of serial murder victims are under age 18, noted Mary Booker, an FDLE operations coordinator.

During an interview, Dempsey said FDLE needs at least $400,000 to not only assist local law enforcement in this identification, but to train officers, Health and Rehabilitative Services employees and state attorneys in dealing with crimes against children.

"The traditional view of things is the bumbly social worker goes in and destroys evidence. The other view is the law enforcement person goes in with no sensitivity to the child," said Booker. "Neither of which is true. But what we do want is them working as a team."

Though the proposal was not included in FDLE's regular 1985-86 budget request, House Speaker Pro Tempore Elaine Gordon, D-North Miami, and Sen. Roberta Fox, D-Miami, apparently will sponsor it.

CORRECTION . . . In this column on March 17, it was reported that state Rep. Carol Hanson, R-Boca Raton, removed her name from the sponsor list of a bill to establish a state pay equity study commission and also voted against the bill in a House subcommittee. Hanson struck her name from the bill but she did not vote on it.